


Into the Half-Light

by uumuu



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Half-Sibling Incest, M/M, Non-Graphic Smut, Secret Relationship, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-18 13:45:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5930580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uumuu/pseuds/uumuu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are quite a few things Fingolfin doesn't know about his brother (and lover).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Half-Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mangacrack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangacrack/gifts).



> Many thanks to amyfortuna for beta-reading this!

Ñolofinwë's oldest memory was a jewel box of colours and sounds, each a small vivid piece of a jigsaw he would put together and pull apart again, reliving those fleeting happy moments over and over. He wasn't entirely sure it wasn't in fact something he had dreamt, or a child's fantasy which had embedded itself in his mind so deep as to be indistinguishable from the hazy recollections of those years so far back into his life. 

A drowsy day, in the early afternoon. The nursery was filled with the warm breeze of the harvest seasons, and cicadas droned shrill in the garden outside. Their call grated on his ears, but after a while he had managed to shut it out, focusing on the building blocks he was playing with on the large round rug that covered the floor at the very centre of the room. He had made a tower, a tall thing to imitate the Mindon. From time to time he glanced up at his nurse, to make sure she didn't look at his creation before he was finished with it. He had been lifting the last piece towards it, stretching his hand up, when a bird had flown in from the open window, its wings fluttering so fast they were almost invisible, and perched on the very top of the tower.

It was a very small bird, with a very long thin beak, reddish-orange in colour, the underside of its neck bedecked in a shiny down resembling a fish's scales. 

Ñolofinwë's child's heart leapt in his chest at the sight of it. He had gently laid the block he held back down on the ground, and extended his right hand towards the bird. The little creature had hopped onto it right away, delicately wrapping its toes around his index finger, which could have been made precisely for its hold. Ñolofinwë still heard in his ears the muffled squeak of joy he had made. The bird's tiny, pearly black eyes had fixed on him, while it tilted its head from side to side and the feathers under its beak caught the light, reflecting it in flashes of firey red and dark lustrous gold.

Ñolofinwë had lifted the finger close to his own face, gazing at it in wonder. The hummingbird seemingly did the same, looking at him as if it wanted to pierce right through to his soul. 

After a time, it had given him a gentle peck on the nose that made him laugh out loud. 

His laughter broke the spell.

“A red hummingbird,” his nurse said aloud, standing up, her embroidery strewn carelessly on the table. “They are beautiful to be sure, but very ill-tempered...they won't tolerate competition for food.”

The hummingbird had turned in her direction for a moment, and fled before Ñolofinwë could react. He could only watch it speed towards the trees of the garden, and disappear. Abruptly crestfallen, he had kicked his tower, sending the blocks flying all over the rug, his nurse's reprimands more jarring to his ears than the cicadas outside. 

That encounter was one of Ñolofinwë's most jealously guarded treasures. What made him suspect it had all been a dream rather than something which had actually happened was the fact that his half-brother's piercing gaze was the closest to the hummingbird's gaze of that long gone afternoon. 

It was an absurd idea, of course. An utter nonsense. Yet whenever he stared into Fëanáro's eyes he couldn't help thinking that they were the same – searching, inquisitive – and made him feel the same – puzzled, and somewhat perturbed, but at the same time happy to be the recipient of the attention such a marvellous creature.

Fëanáro and he now sat opposite each other at the long table in the dining room of their father's house for supper, one of many occasions during which everybody tip-toed around words for fear of speaking too much, and the unsaid said all there was to say. Ñolofinwë was seated at his mother's left, Fëanáro at Finwë's right, with Nerdanel next to him and the long line of his sons evening the count of his half-relatives even with Arafinwë and Eärwen and their first-born sitting together with Findis, Lalwen, Anairë, Findecáno and Turucáno.

Anairë, Ñolofinwë could sense, was deep in conversation with Eärwen. Tyelcormo and Carnistir entertained each other, their whispers interspersed with badly restrained snickers and titters. Finwë discussed something inconsequential with Arafinwë and Findis. Nerdanel talked to Indis, who sat straight and stiff, holding her head at an awkward angle to avoid meeting Fëanáro's gaze. 

But Fëanáro wasn't paying her any attention. Ñolofinwë had his voice, his thought, his touch in his own mind. Fëanáro blandished him with the promise of unrestrained pleasures later that night, images of them naked, aroused, entwined together on candid sheets. The sight of him sitting there was a treat in and of itself. He wore a tunic made of velvet – it was rare enough to see Fëanáro dressed in clothes that were not working or travelling clothes – dark red-orange with waves of silver embroidery. Ñolofinwë could just feel its texture under his hands, and the heat beneath it...

His mother's voice barely made it past his reverie. “Do you agree, Ñolofinwë?” 

Ñolofinwë startled and looked up at her. “Forgive me, I was...not listening,” he stuttered, silently chiding himself. His mother couldn't fail to notice how distracted he was.

Indis glanced to her right for the briefest moment. Fëanáro lowered his head to his plate, but stretched his right leg under the table and his boot poked Ñolofinwë's left ankle, maintaining contact between them even after the link between their minds had been broken. 

“Nerdanel has suggested we use columns in porphyry to go with the green marble in the hall of the new wing.”

“I do believe it is a clever combination. What do you think, Fëanáro?” Finwë said, with a light tone to pretend, as ever, that nothing was amiss, that those stunted, banal conversations were signs of harmony.

Fëanáro turned and smiled, a smile that was pointedly for Finwë alone. “I think they would make a most pleasing combination.”

“I think so too,” Ñolofinwë agreed. 

Fëanáro's leg retreated, and a very faint smirk was the last enticement Ñolofinwë got before he concentrated on the dinner again. 

Later, they found each other in a room of Fëanáro's suite, the bedchamber of one of his sons. 

Ñolofinwë reached it by the secret passage which departed from the corridor leading into the King's chambers – a well-known trek to him – and as soon as they stood together in the safety of that enclosed space he smashed his lips against Fëanáro's mouth. Fëanáro yielded to him, slack in his hold, letting him take control.

Fëanáro was always the first to give. Ñolofinwë at times thought it was just a tactic to snare him. Because he couldn't resist. He couldn't resist when his half-brother stretched himself on the bed, his face still suffused with the heat and haze of the strong, fruity wine they had drunk at dinner, and the sweet liquor that had accompanied dessert, naked, beckoning.

Ñolofinwë moved in to take, naked too and wondrously hard, settling between Fëanáro's legs – between strong, hefty thighs that could have easily trapped him, and crushed him, if the need he had for Fëanáro hadn't been far more overwhelming.

Their love-making was full-blooded, ardent, sparing nothing. He sank himself into Fëanáro so as to be enveloped in his tight heat to the root, while Fëanáro cupped his face and raised his head from the bed to nip and lick at his lips, his hands dreamlike-gentle. The particular texture of his calluses was very much familiar to Ñolofinwë by then, and he shivered at the faintest touch.

The pleasure rose to a shattering climax, and while he still basked in ecstasy it was Ñolofinwë's turn to be taken. 

Fëanáro had him lie on his side and glued himself to him, his nose poking the tender skin behind his jaw. 

“You smell sweet, brother,” he purred, but the soft sound was in fact just the superficial coating of a growl.

Fëanáro lifted his leg to have better access to his ass, and his cock pressed at his hole, sliding effortlessly inside his welcoming passage. As Fëanáro's thrusts picked up, so did the strength with which he held Ñolofinwë. Ñolofinwë delivered himself to it but he couldn't help grow uneasy, too. The sounds Fëanáro made, the sharp way he inhaled, as if he wanted to _devour_ his scent, the scrape of teeth and nails betokened of something altogether different from affection or lust. Fëanáro's coarse hand let go of his leg and pumped his cock, wresting a second orgasm from him which was as intense as the first, leaving him drained and dizzy. 

“Are you feeling good?” Fëanáro asked, after his thrusts had stopped, and his seed had filled his brother. Ñolofinwë always clenched his ass, to keep it all in. He nodded. Fëanáro sat up and rolled him until he was lying supine, and trailed the back of his hand down his cheeks, first the right and then the left. “Are you happy?”

Ñolofinwë nodded again, all thoughts and concerns forgotten in those moments of bliss. Fëanáro curled up against his side. Ñolofinwë wrapped an arm around him, pulling him even closer, and they dozed off for a while, together, before each went back to his own chambers and his own bed.

In his sleep Ñolofinwë dreamt of the hummingbird, but the dream mingled with the suspicion, constantly lurking at the back of his mind, that there was something uncanny about Fëanáro, something he sensed but couldn't quite discern.

He didn't in fact know much about Fëanáro beyond what everybody else knew: that his self-will and arrogance went hand in hand with his genius, and that few were able to influence him. Fëanáro and he rarely talked, rarely met outside of the bedchamber, and the glimpses into a kinder side Ñolofinwë caught there were tantalising, and even more confusing. 

Fëanáro often travelled, Ñolofinwë led his life in Tirion. Fëanáro was constantly moving, making, Ñolofinwë thrived in stability. 

Over the course of time two more sons were born to Arafinwë, and then their two daughters were born in the same year, mere months apart. Fëanáro only met them when they were already toddlers learning to walk their first steps, and crafted a present for each. 

He too would have wanted a daughter, he said, but Ñolofinwë had the distinct impression that it was a lie, or maybe it was his jealousy surfacing: Fëanáro would have doted upon a daughter even more than he doted upon his sons, deluging her too with all the attentions Ñolofinwë hadn't had as a younger brother.

Fëanáro's sons were constant presences at his side, and the older they grew the closer they seemed to cleave to him. Ñolofinwë was on friendly terms with Maitimo, who was almost the same age as him, and with Macalaurë, but he had reservations about the others, probably because they were, more openly, mirrors of their father. 

Tyelcormo was known to speak with animals, being able to understand all their tongues. Oromë's blessing no doubt, extraordinary, but explainable. With silver hair and pale eyes of nearly the same colour to adorn pearly white skin, he looked like one of the river-sprites that lived deep in the forests at the heart of Valinor. Pityafinwë and Telufinwë were the recipients of much mistrust. Their birth as twins had given rise to many conflicting theories, and they too were hunters, but of the solitary type if their father and brothers were unavailable to go with them. They were known for their stealthiness: they seemed to appear like mist. 

Those thoughts swarmed Ñolofinwë's mind when talk began spreading through Tirion of two large wolves roaming the land just outside of the town walls. Not much later, Írissë's nurse warned him of three large ravens perching on the windowsill of the room where the little princesses were playing. 

Ñolofinwë hurried to the nursery, and found the other nurse holding Artanis in her arms, while Írissë stood in front of the windowsill. Ñolofinwë lunged towards her, but Írissë was giggling and fearlessly patted the head of the bird in the middle, her face dangerously close to its large beak.

The sightings stopped when Fëanáro left again, and again Ñolofinwë was beset by misgivings. When Fëanáro returned, he decided to keep a close eye on him.

He would have wanted to talk to him during their nightly encounters, but something held him back, and at length an occasion to do things his own way presented itself to him. 

Fëanáro had been seen in the early morning in the company of Tyelcormo, heading towards the Calacirya. It was in that direction that Ñolofinwë too set out some time later, after making sure that his other sons were otherwise occupied.

The twins were helping their mother hew some blocks of marble that had been delivered in the early morning. Maitimo was at court, engaging in frivolous philosophical debates with smitten dignitaries, and Macalaurë was with him, though Macalaurë was, as usual, more taken with the linguistic aspects of any conversation, keeping an ear out for every variation in the dignitaries' speech. Curufinwë spent time with his lady wife, whom he had not seen in months. Ñolofinwë had no information on Carnistir's whereabouts, but it was unlikely that Carnistir was anywhere else than at home, immersed in his solitary crafts. 

The road to the Calacirya and Alqualondë was straight, cutting through open fields, but closer to the Pelóri many minor roads and paths departed from it, branching towards the hills and forests on either side of the gap in the mountains. 

Ñolofinwë followed Fëanáro's tracks up a winding, solitary road, and managed to catch up with them in a forest rich with undergrowth. He crept close enough to hear them talk. Fëanáro's voice was unmistakable, low but melodious. When Ñolofinwë finally dared to peek through the shrubs, there was just Tyelcormo, though smiling and nodding his head as if he had indeed been talking to someone. By an unfortunate coincidence – or an instinctive reflex – Tyelcormo looked up, their gazes met. His face hardened, lips curled in a grimace. He abruptly turned, and climbed the hill at his back.

Ñolofinwë wavered for a moment, then rushed across the clearing and up the hill, and found himself in the middle of the oakwood at the side of the road. The trees weren't particularly large – they had slim trunks with sparse crowns of leaves – and were evenly spaced out, leaving no place to hide. Ñolofinwë looked around frantically, but in every which direction there was no sign of his brother. All he could see was the bluebells in full bloom turning the forest floor into a carpet of pale purple, and Tyelcormo standing right opposite him, with his arms crossed over his chest and his chin upthrust.

Ñolofinwë met his gaze and walked until he stood in front of him, their chests almost touching. He quivered faintly, his breath short with confusion and expectation rather than with fatigue. “Where is your father?” he sharply said. 

Tyelcormo slowly uncrossed his arms, and opened them wide. “Do you see him?”

“I heard him! I heard him talking to you just moments ago,” Ñolofinwë insisted, raising his voice. His head snapped to the side at the sound of a leaf being crunched, but it was just a squirrel, who peered at them fearfully and hurried back up its tree. A hummingbird, wolves and ravens... “He can't have disappeared.”

“He didn't. It's you who are imagining things,” Tyelcormo said with a hint of mocking to his voice. He cocked his head to one side. “Are you sure you haven't heard too many of your mother's Vanyarin fairy tales?”

Ñolofinwë grasped the front of Tyelcormo's shirt, so violently he almost made him lose his footing. “I demand you to tell me where your father is!”

Just then there was a flash of red among Tyelcormo's silver hair. 

Ñolofinwë balked. His hold on Tyelcormo slackened and he gaped, for there, right before his eyes, was the hummingbird of his recollection.

The following day he asked Fëanáro to come to his own house, at a time when they wouldn't be disturbed. Ñolofinwë waited for him, his nerves on edge, pacing the room fretfully. He tried to relax his body from time to time, bending his neck to one side, shrugging his shoulders, but every time he grew tense again. The dagger which glinted in the light of the only lamp lit in the room whenever he passed under it was Fëanáro's own present. It was long, the blade thin, the hilt bearing the coils and colours of an elaborate design. The precious stones and minute reliefs were a decoy: beauty to hide deadliness. 

_Fëanáro was the hummingbird_ , his mind droned. It was absurd, to be sure, but there was no other explanation. Beings who were able to change their form at will existed. They were one of the many things the Eldar had supposedly left behind in Cuiviénen: it was said they had been all in the service of the Dark Rider, ensnaring unsuspecting Quendi, trapping them like spiders catch prey on their webs.

Ñolofinwë waited, his anxiety mounting with each passing second. Fëanáro was taking his time. He stopped in front of an armchair, and slumped on it, but with the dagger still clutched feverishly in his right hand. He threw a glance at the bottle of firewater which stood half-empty on the table. He had the urge to drink again, but he would only become more confused than he already was. He glanced towards the open window. Birds chirped merrily on the trees in the garden, their last song before nightfall. He brushed his free hand over his face, trying to bring his agitation under control. 

When he heard footsteps in the corridor, he sprang to his feet, the dagger at his side, in the dark, to hide it. There was a knock at the door, and then it clicked open. Fëanáro stepped into the half-light, peering around the room. He smiled as his eyes settled on Ñolofinwë, stepped in and turned towards the door to close it. Ñolofinwë strode across the room and pounced on him, pushed him towards the wall and put the dagger to his throat, the whole length of it pressed against Fëanáro's skin.

“ _What_ are you?” he hissed. 

A shocked gasp escaped Fëanáro's lips. His nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply, in that uncanny way Ñolofinwë knew well, and hated. 

“Have you been drinking?” he asked, his head tipped back.

“Answer me!”

Fëanáro slowly lowered his head, and leaned forward, the skin of his neck catching on the dagger, breaking. “I am an Elda, the same as you.”

“Liar,” Ñolofinwë snarled, but unconsciously pulled the dagger back. “You are _that_ hummingbird.”

Fëanáro leaned in until his lips were pressed against Ñolofinwë's. The kiss was long and tender, their lips barely sliding against each other, and it was only when Fëanáro muttered _'what if I am'_ that Ñolofinwë went back to himself, to his intent. He pushed Fëanáro back against the wall, the tip of the dagger resting above the red line running across it. 

“Don't play with me. Is it too much for me to expect the barest consideration from you?”

Fëanáro grasped the flat of the blade, intending to lower it, but Ñolofinwë shook his arm, forcing him to let go. 

“Tell me the truth!” 

“Or?”

Ñolofinwë pushed the dagger closer to Fëanáro's neck, right where his heartbeat pulsated most strongly. Just a little more and it would pierce the skin again, and embed itself in it. 

Fëanáro stared at him, emotionless, for a little longer, then his form seemed to shrink, and in a flash there hovered the red hummingbird, held aloft by the whirr of its flapping wings. Ñolofinwë gave a choked cry and sprang back. He watched the bird fly weightlessly past him towards the table, where it morphed into the aspect of an elf, and was Fëanáro again. 

Fëanáro perched on the edge of the table, eyed the bottle of firewater curiously. He calmly poured himself some of the liquor in the same glass Ñolofinwë had used, and sipped it in purposefully small mouthfuls. Ñolofinwë followed his every movement, the dagger at the ready.

“It was passed down to me by my mother,” Fëanáro said at length, licking his lips thoughtfully.

“Your mother?” Ñolofinwë half-whispered half-shrieked, still astounded.

“My mother...fairer than any Valië. It's excruciating, being tied to a place, when you know you can fly. Father never knew about it, he doesn't even now...” Fëanáro's voice trailed off in a whisper. He drained the glass, and set it back on the table. “My mother, she was afraid...terrified, that father would find out and be repulsed, that he would refuse her, so she tried her utmost to stifle her nature. But her role as Queen didn't quite agree with it, and she was destroyed by the struggle.” Fëanáro again paused, heaved a shaky sigh, and Ñolofinwë thought he could see tears at the corner of his eyes. “She wrote a letter to me before she was taken to Lórien. I don't have the same hair or eyes as her, but she feared I would inherit her most singular ability. It saved me. I knew from the beginning that I couldn't stay in one place, I knew that I had to be free.”

Fëanáro walked back towards Ñolofinwë. He laid both hands on his shoulders and placed a brotherly kiss to his cheek.

Ñolofinwë recoiled, but not in fear. His mind was in a whirl of confusion, yet the tension seemed to leave his body in the wake of his half-brother's revelation. The dagger slipped from his hand onto the carpet, soundlessly, forgotten. “...does this mean...you can turn into _any_ animal?” 

Fëanáro nodded. “I do. My children have all inherited my...secret nature, though in different degrees.”

“That's how Tyelcormo can speak to animals?”

“Exactly.”

Ñolofinwë reflected that it did make sense: Tyelcormo had the same hair colour as Míriel, which meant her blood had to be stronger in him. Carnistir, on the other hand, had inherited her eyes. The _black_ Finwë. Three ravens.

“Moryo can _only_ turn into a raven...the sole animal to be thoroughly black,” Fëanáro promptly clarified. “I keep wondering if there are other people who have this gift.”

“It is...sinister, for a gift.”

Fëanáro smiled mirthlessly. “I know the Valar don't approve of anything that is out of their comprehension or their control,” he said, and knelt between Ñolofinwë's legs. “So, what will you do now, brother...go out there and tell everybody...tell Father?”

Ñolofinwë drew himself up a little. His instinct would have been to slip away again, put off any further talk to when he would be feeling less overwhelmed, and he would have if just Fëanáro hadn't been that intimately close. “Why did you come to me on that day?”

He didn't need to specify which day. 

“I wanted to see you...and I didn't want anybody to know about it. You were such a winsome child.”

“...I want you to spend more time with me.”

Fëanáro narrowed his eyes and lowered them. “I think I could do that,” he murmured, and rubbed his cheek against the inside of Ñolofinwë's thigh. 

Ñolofinwë's heart thumped wildly in his chest, for what he had dared ask, and for the fact that he had not been refused. 

“You –”

Footsteps sounded outside, getting closer. Ñolofinwë looked down in horror. Fëanáro smirked. He straightened and turned into a cat, hopped onto Ñolofinwë's lap, and nestled there. He was rubbing his head against Ñolofinwë's chest when Findecáno entered the room.

“Has Fëanáro arrived?”

Ñolofinwë put both hands around Fëanáro's new form. A soft purr started beneath his palms. “He...left.”

“Already?” Findecáno said in a jaunty tone, betraying surprise, but also relief. “Where did that cat come from?”

“I –...think it slipped in from the window...earlier,” Ñolofinwë lied. He looked on as Findecáno approached the armchair, and stretched his hand out to pet...the cat, but _the cat_ hissed at him, and lashed out with one of his front paws. 

Findecáno pulled back, cradling his scratched hand. Ñolofinwë, in spite of everything, broke into laughter, hugging the cat to himself.


End file.
